Birds as suppliers of seed dispersal in temperate ecosystems: conservation guidelines from real-world landscapes

Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology
Daniel GarcíaGuillermo C Amico

Abstract

Seed dispersal by animals is considered a pivotal ecosystem function that drives plant-community dynamics in natural habitats and vegetation recovery in human-altered landscapes. Nevertheless, there is a lack of suitable ecological knowledge to develop basic conservation and management guidelines for this ecosystem service. Essential questions, such as how well the abundance of frugivorous animals predicts seeding function in different ecosystems and how anthropogenic landscape heterogeneity conditions the role of dispersers, remain poorly answered. In three temperate ecosystems, we studied seed dispersal by frugivorous birds in landscape mosaics shaped by human disturbance. By applying a standardized design across systems, we related the frequency of occurrence of bird-dispersed seeds throughout the landscape to the abundance of birds, the habitat features, and the abundance of fleshy fruits. Abundance of frugivorous birds in itself predicted the occurrence of dispersed seeds throughout the landscape in all ecosystems studied. Even those landscape patches impoverished due to anthropogenic disturbance received some dispersed seeds when visited intensively by birds. Nonetheless, human-caused landscape degradation largely affecte...Continue Reading

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Citations

Mar 30, 2012·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Daniel García, Daniel Martínez
Sep 14, 2012·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Julia S MarklKatrin Böhning-Gaese
Apr 27, 2016·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Jessica E LavabreJordi Bascompte
May 12, 2016·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Marta A Jarzyna, Walter Jetz
Dec 23, 2017·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Monika H EgererHaldre S Rogers
Sep 7, 2017·PloS One·José M Rey BenayasLuis Cayuela
Oct 30, 2018·The New Phytologist·Marta CorreiaSusana Rodríguez-Echeverría
Jun 4, 2016·PloS One·Natalia Stefanini Da SilveiraMarco Aurélio Pizo
Apr 25, 2018·Bioscience·Kevin J GastonRichard Inger
Aug 9, 2021·Journal of Environmental Management·Ana D SampaioPedro A Salgueiro

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